And now that I can get off of my high horse I'd also like to say that Shin Godzilla is a better Evangelion movie than all the Rebuilds put together.

Considering only one out of the three released so far is even good, that's not saying much. =PI'm looking forward to that movie too (I read some other reviews that said it's a return to form for Anno), but it's playing nowhere near me, so I'm going probably just going for a "1080p.BR.mkv". Or stream it if available soon.

Okay, so I didn't check the page before this before I posted. Sometimes it's months since anybody posted something here, so I didn't check. I just wanted to get the word out so people would read my blog.

Completely unrelated to the above, but the Hollywood Ghost in the Shell live action was actually a decent movie. They skipped out on the philosophical ponderings of the Mamoru Oshii film, but hey, it was pretty and was clearly made by a huge fan with all the homages to the franchise peppered throughout.

Check out my film blog for a writeup on the anime hit KIMI NO NA WA (released in the U.S. as YOUR NAME), one of the best new anime features in years.

Sometimes I'm not sure if Madara is just a PR guy for his blog and reacts like a bot to certain words or actually reads what the others wrote. lol

That post right after our conversation certainly did tingle my spam sense.

I went to see Your Name in a theatre again earlier this week. I haven't done that since the first Matrix movie (and I pity the young ones who were not there to experience how paradigm changing The Matrix was, regardless of how much of meme it became later or how bad the sequels were). In a way, it's even better on a second viewing. Which may not be my last either, since it's playing until at least next Thursday around here.

A few remarks about your review Madara. I'm pretty sure "Your Name" is the official English title chosen by the creators rather than Funi. It appears in most of the Japanese promo materials anyway.

I'm surprised you don't remember Voices of a Distant Star. It was Shinkai's breakthrough work, created almost entirely by himself, and is thematically and emotionally very similar to Your Name. And just about as heart-wrenching. At least to me it was and is an unforgettable work.

Finally, this is more of a personal taste, but I thought the songs fit the movie and the mood perfectly. And it's not the first time that songs were a prominent part of Shinkai's works - see Voices again.

And since I'm nitpicking, personally I didn't care for the laundry list of the 50 or so old movies with somewhat similar premises or themes to Your Name. And I would care even less if was actually familiar with any of them and thus got an idea of Your Name's plot from it. I went into the cinema without knowing a single thing about it other than that it was Shinkai's latest work, which to me is a sufficient recommendation - though I suppose it may not be to an average viewer not familiar with his previous works.

A few things I picked up on the second viewing. Some were purely visual, some were tied to the plot, but all made me love the movie even more.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Taki and Mitsuha using "iPhones" that are 2 or 3 generations apart - it wasn't just a coincidence, but the fact that Taki's model didn't exist in Mitsuha's timeline yet.

The days of the week on their phones being different for the same dates - placing them respectively in 2013 and 2016.

The (pretty obvious) red string of fate theme, also appearing in the flashback montage in many forms, including that of umbilical cord.

More subtle details of how their lives changed or were affected - Mitsuha starting to sleep with her bra on, or having her hair only tied rather than carefully braided on "Taki days" since Taki presumably didn't know how to braid.

I appreciate your critique and feedback, Aine. I don't often get a sense of how these things play, particularly my rundown of (four!) older movies with similar themes. I realize that things that seem important to me may not strike others the same way and things that seem unimportant to me (e.g. the songs) may be very important to others. But I find that true of how I perceive most things these days. If it's not too much trouble to leave a comment on my blog so other readers can get another viewpoint, I'd appreciate that. Or, if it's okay with you, I'll just copy and paste your comment, leaving out the "Madara" reference, saying this was a response from a friend on another forum.

If you love capeshit or tokusatsu heroes shows/movies, you need to watch Hentai Kamen.
You especially need to watch Hentai Kamen if you hate them.

It's a wonderful parody of comics like Spiderman and, of course, Kamen rider. The guy playing HK, Ryōhei Suzuki, does an absolutely phenomenal job. He also did all the stunts himself and obviously enjoyed being such a fabulous, flamboyant pervert.

I thought Prometheus was interesting but flawed. Unfortunately I found Alien Covenant to be a very unsatisfying followup. All mess. The way it continues the events of Prometheus is almost as unsatisfying as the Aliens -> Alien 3 transition, and the new directions it decides to go seem to really narrow the universe's scope in an attempt to tie things together. Ridley Scott has at least one more of these things planned, but right now I'm just left with a bad taste.

As a kid I was really into the Power Rangers. Watching the show each week, the movie at the cinema, played their SNES brawler and had several toys... and I had a major crush on Amy Jo Johnson, the pink ranger.
Whenever I have a hangover on weekends and wake up early, I check if a Ranger show is on kids TV and when there is, I usually watch it just because I enjoy how stupid it is. It's stupid, but good fun.

When Lionsgate announced a Power Rangers movie, I was afraid it's going to be worthless garbage like the TMNT or Transformers movies.
Two weeks ago a full trailer got released:https://www.youtube....h?v=Q-C4qqsgs8w

Doesn't seem campy at all and seems like most of the Snyder-ish/wannabe-Nolan capeshit of recent years. However, it also doesn't look like utter garbage (so far), so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Saw it last weekend at it was pretty much the 6/10 I was expecting it to be.

Visually well crafted and rather entertaining with some good moments and surprisingly believable characters, but a few things just stood out to me (from more to less annoying):
- Some weird tonal shifts from campy to outright brutal (Rita tears out the gold teeth of somebody off-screen!)

- I don't like the new Alpha at all. He looks weird, is kind of a smartass and his trademark "aye aye aye!" is completely unfitting.

- I don't like the new Goldar. In the show he was kinda stupid and actually in a lot of scenes, ended up developing a real character. But in this he's just a golden titan that gets killed by the Rangers.

- Waaay too many coincidences in the first twenty minutes with some things just not explained at all.

- The completely unsubliminal product placement of some food store.

- They play the iconic classic intro theme a good 20 minutes before the end of the film AND not long enough.

Some of the changes, like Zordon's new backstory and character, I didn't mind.

Pink and yellow ranger are hot as fuck!

I hope the movie does well enough to get a decent sequel with Lord Zedd.

Just watched In This Corner of the World, it's a beautiful, bittersweet and almost feel-good movie. Not something you would expect from a title with "Hiroshima" and "war" as the main keywords. If you expected something like Grave of the Fireflies, not to mention Barefoot Gen, then it's almost entirely unlike it.[/url]

It has a limited run in US theatres right now so go and catch it if you can.

Also reminder that this Sunday and Monday is another part of Ghiblifest screenings, this month's movie is Laputa.

I decided to watch some Ghibli movies I still haven't seen yet and the first one of them was Nausicaä.

I nearly quit during the first ten minutes because there were so many unnecessary exposition dumps and characters (mainly Nausicaä) describing what was happening. Holy crap, rarely have I seen such a terribly written opening in an anime movie. I also don't remember any of the other Ghibli movies having this issue.

Luckily, after they got to the valley of the wind, it got a lot better in that regard, though and Nausicaä turned into a believable character. Though there still were some absolutely unnecessary comments and I strongly believe some of the scenes would have been even stronger if the characters didn't point out the obvious.

Show, don't tell. And most importantly don't show and tell at the same time!

Nausicaä is one of my favorites. Although this one actually wasn't a studio ghibli movie as it was made before the company was founded. So they learned from this. I didn't find the beginning weird, but I've also watched it a lot so I'm used to it.

Of Miyazaki's four masterpieces of the 1980s, NAUSICAA is the most problematic, but I still like it a lot. It was a huge production for a fledgling outfit and Miyazaki's first personal effort (i.e. not a work for hire on someone else's property), so you have to cut them some slack. I don't remember the opening Ap2000 cites. I remember it opening with a long, wordless sequence of Nausicaa going into the poisonous underground region to find one of those insect lenses and bring it back with her on that glider thing and then she rescues Yupa, the old guy who is being chased by a giant undulating insect by distracting it somehow. She may have said a few lines to herself during all that, but I don't remember any significant dialogue exchanges or exposition until several minutes into the film, other than maybe some opening text or narration. Anyone else remembering this differently from me? It's been years since I've seen it.

Also, I highly recommend the Nausicaa manga, by Miyazaki. It's great. And he was continuing it while working on the film, as if he didn't have enough to do.

I don't remember the opening Ap2000 cites. I remember it opening with a long, wordless sequence of Nausicaa going into the poisonous underground region to find one of those insect lenses and bring it back with her on that glider thing and then she rescues Yupa, the old guy who is being chased by a giant undulating insect by distracting it somehow. She may have said a few lines to herself during all that, but I don't remember any significant dialogue exchanges or exposition until several minutes into the film, other than maybe some opening text or narration. Anyone else remembering this differently from me? It's been years since I've seen it.

From what I can tell, it was the standard Japanese dub Blue Ray version with English subtitles.

"Exposition dump" was probably not exactly correct, but I fully stand by "characters (mainly Nausicaä) describing what was happening" and that it annoyed the hell out of me.

Nausicaa is one of my favourite anime movies as well, and definitely the favourite Miyazaki one. I'm super excited to finally see it in a theatre in a couple of weeks.

I don't remember seeing what you described as an issue. Yes, it was exposition, but it wasn't done in a grating way, IMO. Also remember that as serious as the movie is, the target audience was still rather young.

I found Nausicaä weirdly attractive.

Which is great because she was just so likeable and attractive by her own merits and strengths, without being touted as an obvious waifubait.

Also, I highly recommend the Nausicaa manga, by Miyazaki. It's great. And he was continuing it while working on the film, as if he didn't have enough to do.

I have the 3 (or 4?) volume hardcover edition that I've been meaning to read for a long while now. Although it's about as handy to read as a volume of encyclopaedia. I'll get to it though - apparently the movie barely covers one volume and the manga gives much more background and character development.

Beyond was a well executed addition with a fantastic idea for an ending.

There's no other director than Kitano that I fanboy over more, but even I doubt he can turn the second additional story into an interesting movie. But then again, if there's one director that can do that, it's him.

Laputa is probably the most formulaic Ghibli movie I've seen (yet). It is all around nice to watch and there's not much to dislike, but I really would have loved to know more about the Laputans!, even if the movie's story wouldn't have profited from it. I was just really curious!

I already saved a wikipedia entry on the original Gulliver's Travels version.

I sat here for a good three minutes now, but I can't find the exact words to describe how wonderful and imaginative Totoro is. I will however say one thing; this is the first time ever that I didn't notice that 80 minutes have passed. When they found Mei and got back home, I was fully ready for the last half hour and another story arc to begin, but it was already over. I felt pure joy.

Castle in the Sky has always been my favorite. The movie is hilarious and I just like it. I also wish they went more in depth about the Laputans and stuff since learning about that was one of my favorite parts.

Totoro is nice as well but it doesn't really have as much rewatch value. The movie just feels way too short. It's still good though and better than other Miyazaki films.

LAPUTA was the first Miyazaki movie I saw. I took my then 6-year-old daughter with me. It didn't seem formulaic to me back in 1989 because it hadn't been copied so much yet by other anime.

We saw TOTORO for the first time three years later on a VHS tape in Japanese with no subs. I showed that tape to nieces, nephews and other kids. They all loved it. We saw the English dub on the big screen in 1993. I've seen it many times since and love it every time. I recently watched it for the first time in ten years on a newly-purchased Blu-ray. It was magnificent, one of the best animated films ever made. I still haven't seen the Disney English dub with the Fanning sisters although it's on the Blu-ray.